Bucks From The Bicentennial

Paul Revere these days gallops onto New York TV screens crying breathlessly: "Independence is here! Independence is here!" His message: the South Brooklyn Savings Bank has changed its name to the Independence Savings Bank. He might as well be raising the alarm that from now until July 4, 1976, and no doubt beyond, the American consumer will be assailed by an army of business mercenaries out to make money from patriotic fervor.

Like a sudden swarm of 200-year locusts, commemorative kitsch is appearing everywhere: plates, mugs and glasses decaled with an eagle or the likeness of George Washington or John Adams or the flag or Archibald Willard's familiar Revolutionary fife-and-drum trio.* Businessmen are offering patriotic yo-yos, ties, music boxes, telephones, costumes, clocks, T shirts and egg timers. Even foreigners are getting in on the act. Many inexpensive Bicentennial items--though the ads, of course, never say so--are made in Taiwan or Japan. British Airways advertises: "You gave us the business 200 years ago, America. Here's hoping you'll do it again."

Going Zowee. So far, the horde of promotions has drawn a beneficent nod from the guardians of tradition. "I see no harm in these Bicentennial products," says Robert Williams, executive secretary of the New York chapter of the Sons of the Revolution. "There's nothing wrong with making a buck. Free enterprise is the thing that has made this country go zowee." Another reason some approve: makers of souvenirs that meet the modest standards of the Government's American Revolution Bicentennial Administration pay royalties for the use of ARBA's imprimatur, and those fees--4% to 15% of sales--have so far earned the Government $700,000 to help finance such projects as a coast-to-coast bicycle trail and ten massive abstract sculptures to be constructed along Interstate 80 in Nebraska.

Free Decals. There are also, of course, Bicentennial promotions run by companies that figure to gain nothing more than good will. Philadelphia's Olney Federal Savings & Loan is running a series of ads honoring Revolutionary women. Chase Manhattan Bank has put up $100,000 to help finance an exhibit called "200 Years of American Sculpture" that will open at New York's Whitney Museum next March. IBM has offered $500,000 to help pay for a multimedia exhibit, "The World of Franklin and Jefferson," that is now touring Europe. But these projects are vastly outnumbered by the kind described by Robert Freedman, president of Streisand, Zuch & Freedman, a New York ad agency. Says he: "I don't know how many clients have called and said, 'O.K., come up with a Bicentennial promotion,' when they have nothing to do with the Bicentennial and are just trying to sell more."

Some examples of thoroughly commercial promotions: Rich Products Corp., maker of Coffee Rich, offers a "Bicentennial Kit" ("It includes an actual copy of the Declaration of Independence ...") in an ad headlined "Coffee Rich started a revolution in good taste." d-CON insecticide offers six free flag decals or, for $2, a Bicentennial T shirt. Its ad concludes: "So get a little American history free from d-CON, the people who are helping to free America from bugs." Nabisco offers grocers a cardboard kit that unfolds into a display stand--for Nabisco items--stamped "1776 Bicentennial 1976." The kit is called, appropriately, "Profit-Builder No. 1-W." Baskin-Robbins sells "Red, White 'n Blueberry" ice cream cones; a Boston massage parlor offers a Bicentennial special (the regular--er, services for a 10% discount); and Toy-Tex Novelty Co. provides Bicentennial litter bags with Betsy Ross's flag stamped on them.

Many Bicentennial promotions are having early success. "Anything under $5 sells like crazy," says Jamie Goodchild, proprietor of Heritage Shop in Boston's historic Faneuil Hall. He stocks inexpensive "antique" flasks, walking sticks and fife-and-drum records along with quality pewter. But there are doubts over all the Bicentennial schlock.

"Ninety percent of the stuff on the market is junk; it is all hoopla," says Don Donohue, sales representative for Arkansas-based Daisy toys, whose own "flintlock" rifle promotion is not living up to expectations--perhaps because of proliferation of Bicentennial products. Doubtless anticipating such a reaction, Crestline, a well-established maker of colonial furniture, has come out with what might be called an anti-Bicentennial ad. Beneath a photo of the familiar fife-and-drum trio marching off into the mist with backs turned to the camera, the ad asserts: "Soon 1976 will be gone, along with the bicentennial. All the hooplas will be over. And all the guys who made a fast buck in Early American furniture will be looking for something new. And so it goes. Except that there will still be one company..."

* Itself a reminder of earlier commercial exploitation. Willard's work, painted for the 1876 centennial, is said to have made a fortune for Art Dealer J.F. Ryder, who sold reproductions.

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